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"DOM I N ANT IDEA." 



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ORATION 



ALFRED WHEELER, Esq 



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DELIVERED BEFORE THE 






lidiieera, 



ON THE 



32(1 Anniversary of the Admission of California 



SEPT. 0th, 1882. 



PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE SOCIETY. 



GW3 



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SAN FRANCISCO : 
Neal & HoEBER, Power Printers, 415 Montgomery Street. 

/^i^^V 18 8 2. I^ 







^^^^-i^fi^'^ 



ORATION 



BY 



ALFRED WHEELER, Esq. 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



California Pioneers, 



AT 



LAUREL GROVE, SAN RAFAEL 



ON THE 



pd Anniversaiy § Admission of California 

SEPT. 9th, 1882. 



PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE SOCIETY. 




SAN FRANCISCO : 
Neal & HoEBER, Power Printers, 415 Montgomery Street, 

1882. 



OFFICERS 

OF THE 

SOCIETY OF 

California Pioneers 

1882-3. 

WASHINGTON BARTLETT, President. 

Vice-Presidents : 
GEORGE W. GIBBS, - Of San Francisco. 
C. A. C. DUISENBERG, - Of San Francisco. 
CHAS. H. CHAMBERLAIN, - Of Oakland. 
WM. Mcpherson hill, - of Sonoma. 

NILES SEARLES, - - Of Nevada City. 

Ti'eusurer : 

HOWARD HAVENS. 

Secretary : 

FERDINAND VASSAULT. 

Marshal : 

CAPT. ISAAC BLUXOME. 

Directors : 

CHARLES CLAYTON, HY. SCHMIEDELL, 

R. P. JOHNSON, DAVID P. MARSHALL, 

JUSTIN GATES, JOHN KELLY, Jr. 

THEODORE F. PAYNE, GEO. T. MARYE, Jr. 
JOHN B. BOURNE. 



Thii^y- jSecond Anniyei^sar^ 



^odiety of C^lifoi^r^ik 'Pior^eei^^, 



SEPTEMBER 9th, 1882. 



Ill accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, the 
Society of California Pioneers celebrated the Thirty-second 
Anniversary of the Admission of California into the Union, on 
the above named date. The celebration, which took place at 
Laurel Grove, San Rafael, was largeh' attended by the members 
of the Society and their friends. At half-past eleven. President 
Washington Bartlett called the Society to order from the stand 
which had been erected on the platform. 

After some appropriate remarks by President Bartlett, a 
prayer was offered by the Chaplain, Rev. Albert Williams; 
which was followed by a poem, written by Miss Grace A. Welsh, 
and read by E. O. F. Hastings, Esq. An oration was delivered 
by Alfred Wheeler, Esq. and was followed by a pastoral by Dr. 
Washington Ayer. After which a benediction by the Chaplain. 



[4] 

After the close of the literary exercises the company indulged 
in a barbecue and in dancing. Everything passed off in the 
most satisfactory manner. 

Henry Schmiedell, 

John Kelly, Jr. 

Justin Gates, 

S. P. Middleton, 

Henry Palmer, 

A. C. Bradford, 

Committee of Arrangements. 



^ORATION^^ 



ALFRED WHEELER 



DOMINANT IDEA. 

Its Potency over Human Events, 



Fellow Pioneers : 

A wise man has said: "A j:)hilosophical principle becomes 
valuable if it can be used as a guide in the practical jnirposes of 
life" 

The great and sudden flow of pioneer jjopulation to this State 
was an illustration of a philosophical principle, to wit : the potency 
of dominant idea in human affairs; and it is my purpose to-day 
to show how that philosophical principle may be applied, by you 
Pioneers, to the practical purpose of promoting the good of 
California. 

As the absorbing thought in the individual concentrates the 
powers of his mind and gives direction and efficacy to his acts, 
so in society, of which man is but the type, does the pervading 
dominant idea, produce, by its focalization, the greatest move- 
ments, physical or moral, of mankind : and the history of those 
movements demonstrates that human habits, conditions and 
institutions mainly owe their elevation or degeneration to the 
direction of that idea. It even determines, for the time being, 
what is right or what is wrong, so far as finite mind can deter- 
mine an abstract principle. 



[«] 

According to conditions and circumstances its growth may be 
slow or rapid, ephemeral or enduring ; but, whichever it be, it 
leaves its foot-print upon the path of civilization and is a step 
forward or backward in the evolution of the moral and physical 
development of man. 

In his primitive condition, man, being moved only by instinct 
and without reasoning faculties, acted, as the brutes in a state 
of nature still do, with uniformity, mainly ipfluenced by causes 
which arose from climate and natural food supply. 

As mind developed, individual action followed individual 
thought and different minds developed different opinions. 

This condition, by itself, would be an element of weakness, so 
for as combined action was concerned ; a greater weakness than 
would be the possession of a common instinct : but, as intelli- 
gence did not develop in all alike, the more intelligent influenced 
and gave direction to the thoughts and opinions of others and 
thus gradually inspired and formed dominating ideas whose moral 
power created systems of society and governed its operations. 

Focalization of many minds upon one thovight or purpose 
becomes effective as does the instinctive action of masses of 
animals or insects. 

In other words, dominating ideas in man are, like dominating 
instincts in animals, productive of great resvxlts according to the 
number of individvials and their sj^here of action. 

A molecule of air, or a drop of water has no appreciable poten- 
tial force; yet the hurricane and the whirlwind, which are but 
aggregations of molecules in motion, become irresistible j)owers; 
and the cataract, formed of myriads of drops, thunders over the 
precipice and grinds to powder the granite in its path. 

In pre-historic times, when knowledge was narrowly circum- 
scribed, when man had no true conception, except through his 
physical senses, of his fellow men, or even of the earth upon 
which he lived, the progress of mind was slow and its effect un- 
important. 

As knowledge widened and thought reached beyond the visible 
and the present, controlling ideas more readily permeated masses 
of minds and produced important events. 

In modern times, under the potential infliiences of printing, 
steam navigation, railroad travel, telegraphy, the enginery of war 
and the advance of physical science, thought quickly crystallizes 



[7] 

throughout commiTiiities and a <lominafing idea springs into 
action like the flashing emanation of a single gigantic mind. 

HISTOEICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 

The belief of the Hebrews, that Moses was the medium of 
Divine command and power, brought about their emancipation 
from slavery and sustained their courage during tlie long migra- 
tion to Palestine. 

To the early and long existing idea that Heaven was above and 
Hell below the earth, and the natural corollary that the souls of 
the deftarted would be safer from demon power if their bodies 
were kept above ground than if put below, it is more than prob- 
able were due the pyramid tombs of royalty and the mummies 
of monumental Egypt. 

Even the great prolongation of the political life of that country, 
whose civilization existed thousands of years while all Europe was 
barbarian, was owing to persistent policy of isolation within her 
favorable geographical situation. But the dominant idea that 
preserved Egypt civilized, when all else was savage, destroyed 
Egypt, decrepit, when the despised savage had grown to surpass 
her in civilization. 

While she was slumbering through her scores of centuries, Asia, 
the mother of all modern civilization, poured over Europe a flood of 
Aryan humanity spreading from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. 

Along the northern shores of that latter sea it slowly developed 
races that gave birth to dominating ideas of commerce, until at 
last Greece had encircled the Mediterranean with her power, had 
planted colonies of pioneers at every point of profit, had con- 
quered hoary Egypt, and had made Athens the center of 
intelligence where the study and love of philosophy were 
universal, and where art attained to matchless development. 

So long as patriotism and morality formed the basis of the 
philosophies that dominated the minds of her people, so long did 
her political supremacy continue. With degeneration of morals 
came false philosophy and the decline of power. And in like 
manner as Greece had grown during the sleep of Egypt, so did 
Kome, during the luxurious indulgences of Greece, slowly rise, 
through growth of intellectual progress and a common love for 
the public good, to be a mighty power of a hundred millions of 
people whose dominion encircled and absorbed not only Greece, 
but the whole known world. 



[8] 

And after Rome — following clown the pages of history — we 
may trace all great national movements, whether Asiatic, Euro- 
pean or American, to the development, throughout the respect- 
ive communities, of some dominating idea and its irresistible 
inflvaence. 

The heroes, who are pictured as the authors of wonderful 
achievements, were but the voices of a common thought and 
would have been powerless but for the unity of a million minds 
of whose ideas they Avere exponents. The real kings who hold 
the right di\dne to rule are not those who wear the royal purple 
but those clad in the habiliments of industry. The power that 
conquers and avenges holds the bayonet, not the sword. 

A popular hatred of royalty furnished Cromwell with an army 
to drive the Stuarts from the English throne and gave him the 
control of government. 

The determination of the American colonies to resist burden- 
some taxation imposed by Great Britain while denied right of 
representation, was the power that developed and gave grandeur 
to the immortal patriotism of Washington. 

The democratic tendencies of the French and the growtli 
among them of ideas of the equality of man and the sovereignty 
of the people, brought the revolution of '89 with its annihilation 
of feudalism and kingly power and its substitution of repub- 
licanism and the declaration of equality of rights. 

Following that revolution, the popular ambition to extend the 
influence and power of France gave expression in Bonaparte as 
its leader. 

A succession of victories, which were due to the French 
character and courage, as much as, if not more than, to 
Napoleon's intelligent direction of movements, filled the minds 
of the people with the love of conquest and a belief that under 
him they were invincible and might conquer Europe. 

Under this dominating thought. Republicanism, whose baptism 
of blood had been but yesterday, was sent into retirement and 
upon the throne of Imperialism with its dazzling splendors 
Napoleon was placed. 

EFFECT ON RELIGIONS. 

Even religions owe their origin and permanence to dominant 
idea. Selfishness and fear, as motives of worship and religion, 
being natural outgrowths of barbarous conditions, gave birth to 
Paganism and its countless gods. 



[9] 

In the comet, the eclipse, the lightning and thunder, the 
earthquake, the rising overflowing river, the hurricane, man 
observed superhuman power which he thought it would bo 
poHcy to propitiate. Gods became numerous as tribes and 
almost as numberless as men. 

A wider intelligence led to the invention and adoption of 
philosophies relating to the origin and destiny of the soul and 
its subordination to some supernatural poAver. 

The Hebrew faith in One Supreme Being, Creator of the Uni- 
verse, whose power must be feared and whose commands must 
be obeyed, grew out of an absorbing confidence in the military 
leadership of Moses and a firm belief that the decalogue had 
been literally graven and given to him by Almighty God amid 
the lightning and thunder of Mount Sinai. 

"With the progress of peaceful pursuits and habits of industry, 
the human mind grew discontented with a religion which was 
oppressive and austere, which excited fear, not love, which 
promised punishment, not forgiveness, and which failed to 
bring comfort and consolation to the affiicted and suffering. 
The merciful teachings of Christ, coming as emanations from 
and concessions by the inexorable God of Israel, found the 
minds of men ready for the new faith, and thus Christianity, 
with its tender sympathies and equality of blessings, became, as 
it continues to be, the chief religion of the enlightened world. 

Yet even this has, in its eatastrophies, shown its subjective- 
ness to dominating tliought. It subordinated the political govern- 
ments of Europe to the power of the Church of Rome and 
acknowledged the Papal -head as the successor of St. Peter and 
the Vice-gerent of God. 

In the once Pagan east, the hitman mind, after GOO years of 
Catholicism, turned again to Monotheism, and, under Moham- 
medanism, snatched b}' force from the Christian church her 
Asiatic dominion, the H0I3' Land and the sepulcher of Christ. 

Again, in the 11th and 12th centuries, so absorbed did the 
minds of all Europe become with the sense of duty to rescue 
and restore the sacred tomb, that a million crusaders, from 
England, France, Italy and Germany, poured forth under the 
banner of the Holy Cross and wrenched Jerusalem from the 
sacrilege of the barbarians. 

With the invention of printing in the loth century and its 
rapid dissemination of knowledge, the human struggles, against 



[ 10 ] 

the inquisition and other severities of the Roman Church, cul- 
minated in the dominafimj idea of the Reformation and the 
founding- of the Protestant Church. 

And now, Science is penetrating the mysteries of the Universe 
and Avith mathematical precision sweeping away the dogmas of 
all the religions. The very history of creation is formulated 
and faith is made subjective to fact. Natural laAv gradually 
reveals its long hidden, but still inexplicable movements, and 
the known steadily penetrates the domain of the unknown. Its 
teachings are moral as well as physical lessons. Based upon 
truth it reveals to man that in wisdom, which is the intelligent 
use of knowledge, lies the secret of human hai:)piness. 

Innumerable instances, less wide in effect than those pertain- 
ing to nationalities or religions, might be cited, illustrative of 
the influence of dominant ideas. 

The belief in witchcraft, or the power of demons to take 
possession of individuals and enable them to control the acts and 
thoughts of others, caiised, as late as the 16th century, the sacri- 
fice in England of 80,000 hiiman beings by public executions. 

The pervading opinion of our Southern people, that slavery 
was a beneficent institution and should be perpetuated in this 
country, culminated in the rebellion, — And that it failed of being 
a successful revolution was due to the dominating judgment of 
the North that slavery should not be extended nor the nation be 
dismembered. 

The longings of the mind to penetrate the abyss of the here- 
after and the hope that death does not take from us forever the 
companionship of those we love, have made it an easy matter for 
the delusions of Spiritualism to dominate the minds of thousands 
and create honest convictions that Nature's unvarj'ing and eternal 
laws may be made subordinate to the manipulations of a "Me- 
dium." 

DOMINANT IDEA OF THE PIONEER. 

In the light of these illustrations, it is not extravagant to 
assert that the great results which have accrued to the world 
from the increased product of gold during the last 30 years, are 
due primarily to the domii>afin</ idea which directed, to one 
purpose and without organization, nearly a hundred thousand 
pioneers, of whom you are the representatives. 

The fact of the existence of gold in California had been known 
long before the war with Mexico. That knowledge had produced 



[ " ] 

no practical results. For nearly 200 years, the only inroad of 
civilization, uiion the unpro<'ressive savae^e life, was that which 
the fWHBl order of the Roman Catholic Church had made by 
the Mission establishments founded near the sea. 

These were religious and tutelary in their purpose. For their 
protection the Spanish and Mexican governments had established 
small military posts near to each. The soldiers were encouraged 
to marry domesticated Indian women, and these, and a few 
Mexican and other immigrants, received grants of land near to 
the missions and, following the indolent pursuit of cattle 
raising, composed the intelligent population of the country. 

Mining was not encouraged by the priests; nor was it prac- 
ticable, owing to the fact that the mountain regions were 
occupied by extensive tribes of Indians. 

In the then populous regions of the United States, emigration, 
from worn out fields and from places overstocked with human 
labor, to the broad and fertile regions of the west, had been 
encouraged by government and had become a popiilar habit . 

But in all the inviting fields that attracted the wanderer from 
the home of his childhood, there was no promise of si:)eedy 
wealth. No large and immediate reward for industry or labor 
was expected or possible. 

The longings of mankind to rise above the mere drudgery of 
life; to reach after and secure, not alone the comforts but also 
the enjoyments and luxuries which wealth only could procure; 
the desire for a higher civilization than that mere nominal 
existence which was the doom of poverty; the aspirations for 
intellectual and physical improvement, which, during the 
preceding 50 years, had been born in the human heart by means 
of knowledge which printing and modern inventions had dif- 
fused; all these remained hopeless and unsatisfied dominant 
ideas. Universal education seemed only to have opened the eyes 
of labor to the consciousness of its own deplorable condition, 
and to have led philosophers to doiibt the beneficence of 
disseminated knowledge. 

During the war with Mexico, the press of the countiy had 
fixed in the minds of the people the belief that California was 
to become the indemnity for the war. 

Its history, its geography, its advantages of commercial 
situation with reference to the trade of India — which the world 



[12] 

had coveted since commerce was known — and its mineral wealth, 
were written and re-written until the whole nation regarded its 
acquisition as a prize, of value far beyond even the sacrifices 
which it cost. 

THE GREAT IMMIGRATION. 

Almost coincident with the termination of the war and the 
cession of California to the United States, occurred the impor- 
tant gold discovery. The latter occurred in January and the 
former in February 1848. 

It would need a Homer's pen to paint the picture of what 
followed. 

A little nugget of gold, not bigger than a bean, found in the 
race way of a little flour mill, has revolutionized the finances of 
the world, stimulated the enterprise of capital, accelerated the 
advancement of science and the growth of knowledge, and has 
elevated the condition of human labor. 

You well remember, when the news crept across the continent 
that gold could be gathered by the pound and that here industry 
was the mother of wealth, how the hearts of the young men in 
every station of life, thrilled with desire, like those of the fabled 
Argonauts of old, to seek and capture the golden fleece. What 
matter to the discontented, to the hopeful, to the ambitious, 
that this far off land of promise was but a terra iiicognita; that 
its approach was barred by a rocky wall of snow-clad mountains, 
and by a thousand miles of desert; that the whole stretch of 
territory from the Missoviri River to the Sierra Nevada, a distance 
of 2000 miles, was peopled only by hostile and inhuman 
savages. It was the free soil of America whose open treasure 
box invited the dreamer to reality, the hopeful to fulfillment. 

Never, since the expeditions of the Crusaders, did such a host 
of enthusiasts spring spontaneously into action, inspired by a 
single thought and purpose. It needed no Moses to lead, no 
Caisar to command. 

Nearly a hundred thousand men, almost without exception 
intelligent, experienced, young and brave, from the sea coast 
and the prairie, from the factory and the plantation, men of 
culture and men of brawn, men of commerce and artisans 
skilled in mechanic arts, turned hither their footsteps. 

They poured across the trackless desert a living stream of 
emigration, a caravan unbroken for a thousand miles. From 



[ 13 ] 

everj" seaport of the Atlantic tliey manned, as passengers or 
sailors, a fleet of ships which, in line of battle 17,000 miles in 
length and scarce 50 miles apart, warred with the storms of 
fierce Cape Horn. 

They startled the slumber of the dreamy Central American 
with a sudden influx of thousands whose impetuosity defied the 
dangers of the tropics and whose eagerness was only stimulated 
by difficulties. 

That Hegira was no holiday expedition. By every route those 
Argonauts found dragons to dispute the way. Disease and 
death decimated the ranks of the moving columns. 

The line of march across the Continent wa4 marked hj the 
graves of those who fell by the way side, by the bleaching bones 
of exhausted cattle and by the fragments of abandoned wagons. 

Fever captured its victims in • the malaria of the Isthmus and 
scurvy prostrated the adventurers by sea. 

Still onward it came, never turning back, as if moved l)y 
destiny, accomplishing a giant stride in the evolution of the 
world's advancement, Down the granite flanks of the Sierra 
Nevada it swept like an avalanche, filling up the dark canons 
and diiving the bear and wolf from a dominion that had never 
been disputed. 

And from the sea, the white-winged fleet, like a cloud whose 
further limit is lost on the horizon, sailed through the Golden 
Gate until it grew to be a floating forest on the bay. 

The voices from the mountain met the song of gladness from 
the sea, and the harmonious echo cried. Eureka! 

The advance wave of that human sea — which had kept its 
westward course since, 4000 years ago, it moved from its natal 
bed in Central Asia — here at last had reached the limit of the 
land and completed the circle of the habitable globe. Here, 
too, it found itself face to face with that other child of Asia, 
which, walled through aeons in its titan cradle, had. at the 
sound of the westward moving wave, awakened from its leth- 
argy and started east to meet and mingle with the coming flow. 

THE TRANSFORMATION. 

As California then was — without facilities of land or water 
travel or even roads; Avithout food supply, except the cattle 
upon scattered ranches; without houses or material of which to 
build them; without mills, shops or established mechanic in- 
dustries of any sort; without physicians, lawyers or clergymen, 



[14] 

excepting- the padres of the missions; without coin, for which 
there had been no vise or necessity; in fact without any other 
deviation from a state of nature than such as the limited require- 
ments of a very small population had made the sudden 

transition created by that flood of immigration, became a grand 
drama with actors numbered by tens of thousands. 

Although the existence of large quantities of gold and the 
right to take it had inspired the great movement, mining was 
not the purpose of all who came. 

Many knew well that every field of industry here would be 
stimulated and that compensation for labor, Avhether profes- 
sional, clerical, mechanical or manual, would be commensurate 
with the average results of mining. Foiiune was certain to 
bestow upon those who sought her, the favors which had been 
denied them elsewhere. Here the "dignity of labor" would be 
a reality, not a mere aphorism. 

Professional men had brought their libraries, mechanics their 
tools, merchants and shop keepers their goods; and the same 
vessels that had brought the immigration, had, below their 
decks, cargoes of every conceivable commodity which such a 
multitude of men might need or a civilized community make 
use of. 

The transformation was rapid — It was without parallel. 

In the year of our National birth, 1776, the Mission Dolores 
and the Presidio at the Golden Gate were established by Spain. 
From that date down to 1836, not a single habitation, excepting 
the Mission and Presidio buildings, had been erected on the 
present site of San Francisco. On the 4th of July of the latter 
year, Mr. Jacob P. Leese had completed the first house and in 
it celebrated the day of American independence. It was a happy 
omen of the Country's destiny. 

The repose of the bay had been unbroken, except now and 
then by some Arctic whaler or some Boston ship bringing calico 
and blankets to trade for hides and tallow. That sleep was 
turned to vivid wakening. 

An island, begotten in the throbbing tremor of the earth- 
quake, born in a night from the pregnant womb of the deep 
and in the morning resting on her peaceful bosom, could 
scarcelj' be more startling than was the birth of the new State 
and the new Metropolis. 



[ 15 ] 

It was a revelation of the possibilities of man released from 
despair and stimulated by hope. Brawny arms delved into the 
mountain sides bringing the golden treasure from its hiding 
place of ages. Towns and cities, rude at lirst but tasteful by 
degrees, sprang up like magic creations. Almost every art 
known to peace and progress grew and prospered. Husbandry, 
intelligently applied, disproved the theory of the barrenness of 
the soil and covered the State with gardens. Commerce found 
able directors, and the ships that had brought the adventurers 
spread again their sails and became bearers and bringers of the 
fruits of labor. The forum and the pulpit evidenced the organ- 
ization of society; and law, order and honesty, gave encourage- 
ment to succeeding immigration. 

The founding of a political State and the organization of a 
system of government by the people and for the people, is a 
sublime, aye God-like, movement. The eternal principle of 
intelligence, which moves and govei'ns the Universe, is the same 
incomprehensible power which, in man, creates and governs 
society. The one is infinite, the other finite. Order and law 
are the concomitants of each. 

It was a glorious exhibition of intellectual and moral advance- 
ment that neither conflict nor confusion characterized the 
adaptation of that host of men to their new sun'oundings. 

Bringing with them all the varied experiences of industry and 
the high moral habits that are always found most firmly fixed 
in the middle classes ; having unwavering belief and confidence 
in the principles of Republican government and experience of 
its beneficence ; it required neither command nor instruction 
for them to create a social and political system. 

A civil government, with a formal constitution founded upon 
the experiences of the older states and a model of excellence 
in its regard for human rights, was established and thus the 
machinery of law was put together and set in motion. It was 
a monixment to the patriotism and intelligeiice of its authors. 

It is less surprising that, diaring the transition from the prim- 
itive condition to the well organized social and political system, 
a few errors in the administration and construction of law and 
in the observance of all its technical requirements now and then 
appeared, than it is that not even a single week of chaotic state 
occurred. 



[16] 

When the inferior courts refused to permit counsel to address 
a jury, before whom a case had been tried, because the jury 
having- heard the facts did not need to be told them again and 
because, as to the law, there being nearly alwaj^s a briefless 
attorney among them, he could just as well tell them the law 
in the jury room, as could the counsel in the court room, it was 
only a deferential recognition of the universal feeling that time 
is money and not to be wasted in sophistry or declamation. 

So too, when the highest judicial tribunal made a solemn 
decision that the moment a man had left his former residence, 
with the intention of coming hither, he became, that instant, 
a citizen of California even though he might have died on the 
way, it was a formal expression of the Pioneer idea that politi- 
cal rights were too precious to be lost while at sea or while 
among the aborigines of the desert, and that as a man could 
not continue to be a citizen of Iowa after he had left it per- 
manently, and the intermediate region had no right to claim 
him, he must be a Calif ornian. 

Sometimes, too, individual selfish interests threatened violence 
to good order and even to the sacredness of the ermine. 

The Chief Justice of the first Supreme Court told me that, 
one day, after an important decision had been rendered relating 
to the titles under which real estate in San Francisco was held, 
he was met upon the street, by a prominent claimant of many 
lots and whose interests were adversely afiected. The irate 
speculator, shaking his fist in the judge's face, said to him, 
"Sir, the members of the Supreme Court are an infamous body 
and shall no longer be permitted to rob property owners nor to 
disgrace the bench. To morrow. Sir, I shall have a force of 
men in the court room and if the judges dare to take their seats 
they shall be hurled into the street." The presence of Col- 
Jack Hays, Sherifi', and a few trusty deputies, at the court room 
on the next morning, induced the revolutionist and his aids to 
postpone indefinitely the execution of the threat. 

HARDSHIPS AND DANGERS. 

Not unalloyed with misfortune and misery was the prosperity 
of those days. Physical exposure and the innumerable discom- 
forts and hardships incident to mining, the inclement weather 
and the crowded condition of habitations in towns and cities, 
brought disease and death to thousands. The gentle refining 
influences of woman were for a long time wanting and sorely 



[17] 

felt. Probably not a thousand, in all, had come among a hun- 
dred times that number of men. To the sick and dying, 
sympathy and care and kindness of warm heroic hearts, though 
generously and unselfishly bestowed, were given man fashion; 
and the low sweet voice, the pitying eye and the tender touch of 
her, who makes life worth living, came only as a dream of 
Heaven to the ebbing soul. 

And the earthquake and the tlood and the fire came like 
unfamiliar terrors to teach us that nature does not give birth to 
civilization without convulsive throes. Scarcely had a town 
grown into existence and become important to its neighborhood 
and a prosperous mart to its inhabitants when the devouring 
fire seized it and in a single hour had left only its bones and 
ashes. 

Almost annuall}', with the commencement of the summer 
winds, the business portion of San Francisco, with millions of 
the accumulations of industry, melted away before a blast of 
flame. Many lives were lost on those occasions, not by accident 
or surprise, but in the performance of some sense of duty in- 
spired bj* the dominating idea that mutual aid and protection 
were universal obligations of Californians. 

A single incident, though somewhat more personal than was 
or is agreeable to me, of the fire of May 4th 1851, Avhich 
destroyed many lives and nearly all of San Francisco, may not 
be uninteresting. 

THE GREAT FIRE. 

It originated in a paint shop on Clay street opposite Ports- 
mouth Square, at about half past nine P. M. and in less than 
fifteen minutes had engulfed that block, had leaped across 
Kearny street, and, fanned by the N. VV. trade wind of the 
season, had become a fiery hurricane whose tongues of flame, a 
hundred yards in length, were licking up like chafl" everything 
towards the east and south that was combustible. Wells & 
Go's, bank and building, a large four story brick structure, 
stood right in the line of destruction at the S. ^V. cor. of Clay 
and Montgomery streets. The lower floor was the banking 
room, with its entrance on Montgomery street, and the upper 
stories Avere occupied as lawyers' offices, the access to which was 
by a doorway on Clay street at the rear of the banking room. 
In the hall way, into which this Clay street door opened, were 
gathered together at the moment when the Are had almost 



[18] 

reached that point, a dozen or more of the occupants with Mr. 
Skinner, one of the banking firm, in their midst. All were 
undecided as to how or where to remove their books, furniture 
and other property. 

Drays and wagons by the score, loaded with goods from stores 
and dwellings that were now almost in the embrace of the 
flames, and hundreds of people staggering under similar bur- 
dens, came pouring down to Montgomery street and deposited 
their loads uj^on the street to the leeward of the bank, raising a 
pile that reached to the second story. Mr. Skinner urged that 
the building was completely fireproof; that to remove anything 
from it would be unnecessary labor; and that the lives and 
effects of the occupants would be as secure within as without. 

" Let us all remain," said he, " and, after securely fastening 
the iron doors and shutters, await the burning of Dr. Rabe's 
building," a three story wooden one adjoining on the west. 
"When that shall take fire, as it will within a few minutes, some 
sparks or cinders may fall down the chimney flues or blow 
through the chinks of the shutters. By remaining and watching 
we may quench any spark which enters and so preserve the 
building and its contents. Rabe's building will be quickly 
consumed; after which the flames will have got across Mont- 
gomery street and left us safe and sound in their rear." 

Can any body believe that we were sensible men and consen- 
ted? We did. It was an impulse of the Pioneer's pride 
mingled with courage that was ready to fight even the elements. 
The purpose was not rash. It was heroic. We thought that 
we could save that building and we felt that we ought to do it. 

We barred and bolted the entrance doors of bank and hall 
and all the shutters and, lighting our candles, took our positions 
at the windows, each in his respective room. Scarcely had we 
done so, when a roar as of Niagara told us that the devouring 
flames had reached our neighbor. 

The deep thunder sound of that roar seemed to my startled 
ears like the voice of hell, howling at our resistance. I placed 
my hand upon the brick wall, that separated my office by only 
twelve inches from the dread fire that surrounded us, and felt 
the stove-like heat. 

Meeting with the impediment of that solid wall, the flames 
were carried by the wind along it, upward and over the roof, 
pouring down each chimney flue and through the fire-places 



[19] 

into the rooms, burning cinders and inky streams of stifling 
smoke, like the black fumes coming through a steamboat smoke- 
stack from a bituminous coal furnace. 

Snatching the pillows from my bed in an adjoining room, 1 
stuffed them into the grate-flue of my office chimney and stopped 
that channel. 

Thi'ough the open office door I saw that the hall ways were 
tilled with smoke and prudent thoughts began to suggest them- 
selves. I had but a moment of indecision, for as I turned my 
eyes toward the closed iron shutters, I saw that they were red 
with the heat of the flames that shot past them. 

Slowly they bent, curving outward, opening a space of half a 
foot through which, in an instant, like the sea through a shat- 
tered hull, there rushed a stream of mingled flame and smoke. 

The glass of the windows crumbled into dust before the heat, 
and sash and casement formed a blazing frame-work around the 
smoky deluge that poured through and overwhelmed us with 
suffocation. The candles went out, smothered in the carbon. 
There was a blackness like that of death, through which fantastic 
fiery forms darted like dancing demons. 

Through the windows of every room, from roof to sidewalk 
and facing upon Clay Street, the merciless enemy poured in. 
Unable to breathe, and almost asphyxiated, I thought instinc- 
tively of flight from the building. Under such circumstances, 
thought is rapid. I knew that the planked sidewalks and 
roadways must be all ablaze; that in every direction the city 
must be in flames, through which was the only path of flight; 
that, once there, if I could be screened from the intense heat, 
being swift of foot, I might possibly reach the boundary of the 
burning district. 

With these thoughts 1 seized a pair of blankets and, with 
them under my arm, leaped, rather than ran, down the two 
flights of stairs to the street floor, intending to rush through 
the bank and into Montgomery Street. 

I was appalled, on entering the banking room, to find its outer 
doors unapproachable owing to their heat, and the huge bar, 
which had kept it closed, bent and warped and immovable. I 
thought of the great pile of goods which had been placed upon 
the sidewalk in front of this door, and of the wooden buildings 
opposite extending down to the bay. Escape seemed impossible. 
I was choking for want of oxygen. Every inch of space was 



[20] 

filled with the acrid smoke, which would have strangled me had 
I opened my mouth. I must breathe. I thought the smoke 
might not have penetrated to the cellar, and, throwing my 
blankets into the nearest corner of the dark and tomb like bank, 
I darted below. 

From the moment when the candles had gone out in my office, 
until I reached the cellar it had not been over sixty seconds. 

The air down there was still cool and almost free from smoke. 
I tilled my lungs with the precious oxygen and my brain seemed 
electric with vivid flashes of thought. Death within the next 
five minutes seemed inevitable. The faces of a Mother and of 
sisters, wko hopefully and lovingly awaited my return to them, 
and the scenes and pleasant places of childhood swept before me 
like a dream. My thoughts were all of this life, none of another. 

I espied a candle burning in a remote corner, and upon going 
thither found Mr. Strong, the bookkeeper of the bank, and the 
colored porter standing buried in thought. At sight of me, the 
colored man exclaimed, "My God! My God! we've got to be 
burned alive." 1 asked Strong if there was no exit from the cellar. 
He replied, "none." "Then," said I, "if we remain here a minute 
we are lost. The building is on fire from top to bottom. The 
stairs are yet unburned. If we inflate our lungs and fly up 
through the smoke we may reach the roof and from there we can 
leap to the street." 

"Go on." said Strong, "I'll follow you.'" With two strides I 
leaped to the street floor. As I reached it I glanced into the 
bank and saw that the outer iron door had burst from its fasten- 
ings and stood half open; while out in the street the red glare 
looked like a flery furnace. 

Snatching my blankets from the corner where I had dropped 
them, I threw them around me and rushed out into the flame. 

Fate sent my flying feet northward towards Telegraph Hill. As 
I reached Washington Street a thousand voices, beyond, cheered 
me, until I stood safe, with the ocean of fire behind me. I had 
got through unharmed though my boots were burned to a crisp 
and my white blankets were scorched to the color of mahogany. 

In half an liour nothing remained of the building from which 
I had fled but its ghastly smoking walls. 

All escaped from it, though none but me unharmed ; some 
running towards the bay, some southward towards California 



[21] 

street. Three died from the effects of the terrible burns received 
in their flight, and all the others who lived bore permanent scars. 

RKALIZATION, 

There were many dangers and difficulties in those days, but 
they developed will, energy and perseverance, not despondency 
or despair. 

Besides, if fate was sometimes cruel, fortune was always boun- 
tiful in remuneration. There, probably, has never been seen so 
happy and prosperous a people as were those of this State during 
the first twenty years succeeding the gold discovery at Sutter's 
mill. They were then realizing the achievement of a great 
advance toward fruition of the dominatiiKj idea which had 
brought them. They were proving the great fact that labor, 
bountifully remunerated, rises in the scale of intelligence and 
happiness, and that distributed wealth in the hands of the masses 
is a safer and surer guarantee of patriotism and good govern- 
ment, than is concentrated wealth in the hands of a few. 

More than a third of a century, the life of a generation, has 
since then passed away and with it many of those to whose 
energy the birth and progress of this State are due. But we 
who remain may point with pride to their work of genius, of 
which California is the monument and her historj' the epitaph. 
Nearly two thousand millions of dollars in the precious metals 
have been gathered from her exhsustless mines and added to the 
treasure of the world. 

Her streams have been converted into mighty engines of 
hydraulic power, and made to undermine and disintegrate the 
mountains where they were born, revealing treasures lying a 
thousand feet in depth, in ancient river beds that have not flowed 
within the age of man. 

Her valleys of wheat cover more than tAvo million productive 
aci'es, and with her surplus of this cereal she annually supplies 
the deficiencies of the Old World to the extent of almost a mil- 
lion tons. 

Her foot-hills, kissed by the amorous sunlight, bear matchless 
clusters from fifty million vines; and her wines, delicate and 
delicious, rival the nectar of the Rhine. 

Almost a million people have their homes within her borders, 
and in their highest qualities of character, as men and citizens, is 
seen the inspiring influence of the early pioneer. 



[22] 

He stands to-day as he has always stood, pre-eminent among 
the distinguished men of the Pacific Coast. In every sphere of 
action, he is found like a brave soldier, at the front. On the 
bench, at the bar, on the rostrum, in polities, in commerce, in 
mechanic arts, in agriculture and its concomitant the raising of 
cattle upon a thousand hills, in literature, in journalism, in fact 
in every field of enterprise and progress, look where you may 
and in the van you see the Argonaut. 

There remains but a small column of that great Legion to 
which you belong. And as it shall melt away in the ceaseless 
conflict of nature, and, from its ranks, one by one shall yield to 
the inevitable, to you who may remain, will belong as a rear 
guard, the j^ost of honor to bear witness to the courage of those 
who fall. 

How that duty shall be acquitted will depend upon how wisely 
you shall apply to practical purposes the philosophical principle 
which brought you here. 

Coming in your years of youth and enthusiasm, as a volunteer 
army from the ranks of industry, in support of the dominant idea 
that labor should be made dignified and productive of happiness, 
it is your obligation and privilege to dedicate your veteran days 
of maturity and philosophy to the maintenance of that principle. 

THE PRESENT MORAL CONDmON. 

The world has moved far onward in civilization since those 
days of your immigration. Much, perhaps the most, of that 
advance has been due to the inci'ease of wealth resulting from 
the gold discoveries. 

But the blessings, fiowing from the influence of that wealth 
upon civilization, have been less manifest in ameliorating and 
elevating the general condition of the people and developing a 
high standard of governmental excellence, than in founding a 
pronounced aristocracy of money and power, in stimulating a 
morbid appetite for luxurious indulgence, in promoting the 
sensuous more than the higher intellectual culture, in widening 
the distance which divides the relations and the interests of labor 
and capital, and in subordinating the co-ordinate powers of 
government, executive, legislative and judicial, to the will and 
selfish purposes of a few. 

During the past fifteen years these evil conditions, which first 
manifested themselves abroad, have here crept into the social and 



[23] 

political system until now may be seen the shadow of that giant 
Despair, which, before California was born to us, had manacled 
human hope and courage. 

Fraud and corruption hold the keys to official position, and 
extravagance and patronage are their reward. 

The burdens of taxation weigh heavil}^ upon the industrious 
and make the ordinary product of labor inadequate to civil and 
domestic obligations. 

Schemes of speculation, cunningly devised and given the 
sanction of law, seduce and ensnare the unwary and inexper- 
ienced, despoil them of the accumulations of industry and beget 
insanity and suicide. 

Corporate organizations — those incorporeal creations that have 
no moral sense, that never sleep, that are born without limit of 
life or that ma}' perpetuate their own existence — weave webs that 
tangle the hands and feet of industry and, spider-like, drain it 
to a bloodless skeleton. 

The press — that conservator of public rights and morals — so 
often sells its influence to the highest bidder, or becomes dema- 
gogue from mercenary motive, that faith in its moral pui*pose is 
almost lost in popular contempt. 

Laws are enacted whose technical construction tends to the 
acquittal, not to the conviction, of the guilty. 

Demoralization swells the records of crime and compels the 
honest to bear the burden of support of fifteen hundred convicts 
in the State prison and as many more in the local jails. 

The doors of marriage and even of honorable employment are 
almost closed against the nobler sex, until social immorality eats 
into the very heart of virtue and fills the eyes of purity with tears. 

It is a delusive theory of many who deplore these conditions 
that the morale of office holders, of the press, and of the general 
social status, under a Republican form of government, is always 
a reflection of the tone and character of the people. 

This is only true where there does not exist, as there does here, 
the machinery of party politics to neutralize the independence of 
citizens and the corrupting influence of misused wealth to 
debauch their representatives. 

It can not be denied that the will and energy of the Californian 
are not so universally manifest as they were in the days of hard- 



[24] 

ship and discomfort. This is doubtless greatly due to natural law. 
Nature is here generous to man. She has given him a climate 
unsurpassed for health and indulgence, and her soil is bountiful 
in return for labor. But her mildest climate and most prolific 
soil do not tend to promote human activity. It is the harsh 
climate and the capricous soil that stimulate the powers of man. 
When she wars upon him, he fights in self-defence and overcomes 
her severity. When she gives him sunniest smiles and tenderest 
kisses he yields his manhood to her caress and falls into drowsy 
lassitude and dreamy slumber. 

THE REMEDY AND THE DUTY. 

Shall it be said that there is no remedy for the evils of which 
I have spokan? That, while yet there remain living within this 
state not less than ten thousand of those who came hither in the 
early day to escape from such conditions elsewhere, 'to wage the war 
of right against the wrong and to better the physical and its twin 
the moral condition of man, the task of reformation is a hopeless 
one and the experiment of perpetuating that dominant idea a 
failure? I do not believe it. 

There is, in this association, which now numbers in its formal 
organization over 1500 members, a power to avert the mischief 
of this rising river of degradation. You may not be able to stay 
suddenlv its moral malaria, but the same intelligent and courage- 
ous motive which inspired the Pioneer to lay here the foundation 
of an honest and improved condition of human industry, will, 
if persevered in, preserve the structure from the flood that would 
engulf it. 

As you reared dams and levees to preserve your beds of gold 
and your grain and pasture fields from destructive overflow or 
from slow erosion by the tortuous rivers, so may you build up, 
around the political and moral estate, a wall of public opinion, 
against which the streams and sloughs of demoralization shall be 
powerless. 

By awakening the dormant impulses and stimulating the latent 
moral power of the people of this state, you can so direct them 
to the consciousness of danger that one dominating idea of reform 
shall move them as a single mind. When that is accomplished 
who shall stand defiantly before it or what wrong shall go un- 
righted ? 



[25] 

What higher or nobler duty could this society perform than to 
enter upon a systematic movement to that end ? The co-operation 
of the thousands of pioneers throughout this State who are not 
formal members of this association, would greatly aid any such 
movement and would, without doubt, be cheerfully accorded. 

How much can be accomplished by Californians when moved 
by a dominaul idea has been seen in the results of their unanimity 
upon the Chinese question. 

There is no other organized body to which so fitly belongs, as 
to this, the advance place in a great moral movement of the 
peoj)le. 

Unless this be done, the dominating idea, which, like a pillar 
of fire, led you out of bondage 30 years ago, will prove but an 
ignis fatuus, whose light, fading away, will at last leave you and 
the hopes of industiw which have followed you, lost in the gloom 
and mire of disappointment. 

Rather let me believe that this apparent backward step, in the 
California advance of human progress, is bnt a brief rest of a 
rapid march in the evolution of moral gi'owth; and that, guided 
by your example and influenced by your experience and aid, we 
shall yet see this people a peerless commonwealth, whose foun- 
dation was laid upon the rock of industry, whose superstructure 
without stain upon its walls shall bear testimony to the pure 
refinements of prosperity, and whose dome, monumental as her 
mountains, shall light the earth with the golden glow of virtue. 

And of you, who founded and helped to build it, some day 
there will be but one: the last veteran of the Army of Argonauts, 
Who shall it be? Krn\ what a glory shall be his! 

Standing upon the mountain, he may look across the fertile 
valleys, populous with prosperous millions, down to this city by 
the sea rivalling the great emporiums of the world in splendor, 
wealth and population. 

His thoughts will go back to the days of his pilgrimage and to the 
season when he helped to sow the seed whose grand rij^e harvest 
spreads before him. The st^roll of memory will unroll before his 
mental vision the panorama of almost a century of years, the 
finished picture of his journey of life. Its beginning, hopeful 
youth, with burning longings; its middle course a rugged toil- 
some path, though now and then over flowery meads and by 
babbling brooks; its ending, the dreamy gray that follows the 
blue and gold of the setting sun. 



But, ere sleep closes his e3'e-lids, his brain quickens — as the 
vivid flash quivers on the silent evening sk}' — and the dominating 
thnuglili^ that led him here, return; while is revealed, as with 
electric light, the living picture of a whole people whose elevated 
condition is the rich reward of his and your and their nobility 
of purpose. 




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